Meet artist, designer, photographer and actor Fayette Hauser, one of the few female co-founders of the Cockettes, the 1969-72 experimental San Francisco performance troupe known for eye-popping costumes, glittery beards, and sexy musicals some called anarchic.
Her book, "The Cockettes: Acid Drag & Sexual Anarchy," inspired a San Francisco Public Library exhibit of the same name on display through August 11, where I had the pleasure of speaking with her recently. On this week's Out in the Bay Queer Radio + Podcast, Hauser shows us around the exhibit, reads from the book, and shares saucy Cockettes tales.
"When you took acid, the first thing you did was take off your clothes," Hauser told me. "Free love was on the menu, my dear!"
She describes a tactic that Link Martin, "the activist in the group," came up with to help draft-age men get out of the Vietnam War. He would get a Polaroid camera and a bunch of other guys in a van, Hauser said, then go to the line of men waiting at the draft induction center.
"He would invite them to come into the van and get a blow job," said Hauser. "They'd take a Polaroid of it, and say, 'Here, take this in and show them that you're a queer, and they'll let you go.'"
The Out in the Bay broadcast and podcast also features an archived clip of Hauser performing as Fayetta, her Cockettes name.
Because San Francisco had affordable housing in the late 1960s and early 1970s — a Victorian flat for as low as $100 per month, Hauser recalls — young folks could follow their creative dreams.
"It was very easy to live here and to have ... freedom to pursue what you considered your real work." Today, she said, "so many young people are tethered to jobs that they don't like. They don't like their lives."
"The Cockettes: Acid Drag and Sexual Anarchy" is 356 pages full of photos and other graphics from the era, with recent essays by the troupe's members and other culture mavens. The San Francisco Public Library exhibit, in the James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center on the third floor of the main branch at 100 Larkin Street, displays a sampling of the book's photos and essays, one of Hauser's full costumes, and other memorabilia. Hauser plans to appear in person at the exhibit's closing party Thursday, August 11.
Hear more from Fayette Hauser on this week's Out in the Bay, airing 5 p.m. Friday, July 22, on KALW, 91.7 FM SF Bay Area-wide; and 8:30 a.m. Saturday, July 23, on KSFP, 102.5 FM San Francisco only. It is always available on Out in the Bay's website.
Eric Jansen is founding host and executive producer of Out in the Bay - Queer Radio + Podcast. Learn more and listen at https://www.outinthebay.org/
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